Ex-customs Chief At Port Accused Of Drug Smuggling

January 22, 1986|By Jim Leusner of The Sentinel Staff

The former head of the U.S. Customs Service patrol office at Port Canaveral has been charged with participating in a smuggling ring that imported 165 pounds of cocaine into Florida in late 1982, federal drug agents said Tuesday. Authorities arrested Scott McKenney, 32, of Merritt Island, in a motor home at a Brevard County shopping center Friday night because they feared he was preparing to flee, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent Mike Wong testified Tuesday.

An affidavit Wong filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court charges that DEA agents in Orlando learned from an informant during the two-year probe that McKenney ''organized and managed'' the importing of the cocaine into the United States on Nov. 4, 1982. McKenney left the agency in early 1982.

''He was using his U.S. customs knowledge of interdiction of narcotics to benefit his own enterprise,'' said Felix Jimenez, head of the DEA office in Altamonte Springs. ''It's always unpleasant to arrest a federal agent or ex- federal agent, but when he's corrupted it's a pleasure to do.''

Jimenez said the cocaine was worth $3 million to $12 million.

U.S. Magistrate Donald Dietrich in Orlando ordered McKenney held without bail at the Seminole County jail. Dietrich gave prosecutors three days to prepare evidence to show at a detention hearing why McKenney should not be released on bail.

''The client has read the complaint and he says it's not true,'' said McKenney's attorney, Richard Rhodes of Orlando. He would not allow McKenney to be interviewed.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Garry Stegeland told the magistrate that the case against McKenney would be presented to a federal grand jury this week. He and Jimenez would not elaborate on the investigation.

The arrest of McKenney is the second implicating wrongdoing among customs agents at Port Canaveral. In April 1981, customs patrol officer Robert Malley of Merritt Island, who worked under McKenney, was arrested trying to sell 500 pounds of marijuana to undercover agents. He was sentenced to five years in federal prison.

The affidavit accuses McKenney of attending meetings in Brevard County to discuss the smuggling operation and of providing police radio frequencies to help drug pilots avoid detection by authorities, but it is unclear when those alleged activities took place.

Law enforcement sources who asked not to be identified said DEA agents have been investigating allegations that McKenney, a pilot, was involved in drug smuggling as far back as 1978 and 1979, when he was still employed by customs. The affidavit charges that McKenney went to Homerville, Ga., before November 1982 to inspect an airstrip used for importing cocaine. A second informant said McKenney helped install radios to monitor police and communicate with aircraft en route to Colombia to get cocaine. A third informant said the cocaine was flown to Leesburg because of poor weather in Georgia, the affidavit said.

Pryor said McKenney served 14 years with the U.S. government, and other officials said he worked 11 years for customs. She said customs officials did not participate in the DEA probe.

Wong testified Tuesday that agents tried to start monitoring McKenney's movements on Jan. 13. He said agents could not find McKenney until Thursday, when they followed his wife to a motor home where she brought him dinner.

The next day agents followed the woman to another motor home, where McKenney was arrested. Wong said McKenney had $8,000 in traveler's checks and cash, food and other items.

Wong said an unidentified source told him that McKenney was ''trying to lie low now.'' He said when McKenney's wife met her husband, she parked her car far away to avoid detection.

McKenney's wife told agents she and McKenney are divorced, but agents said that was not clear. She said McKenney lived in the motor home because he had nowhere else to live, Wong said.

Sources said the DEA is investigating charges that while working for customs McKenney helped drug organizations headed by former Merritt Island aircraft company owner Wayne Sturman, 44, and DeLand attorney Gerald Anderson, 39, a fugitive on cocaine smuggling charges.

Sturman was convicted in November 1982 of conspiring to supply 48 pounds of cocaine to an undercover agent. He was sentenced to 45 years in federal prison and fined $75,000, but his sentence was reduced in 1984 to 10 years in prison and $37,500 in fines after he testified against a codefendant.

Anderson and several others were charged in 1983 with importing 253 pounds of cocaine into Homerville. Forty-four pounds of the drug were seized in a deal between Anderson and DEA agents in Sanford. Anderson did not show up for trial in Orlando in June 1983.